Tax

The countdown is on. Taxpayers have until midnight Tuesday to get their taxes done. The IRS will receive about 135 million tax returns by the April 15 deadline. About 90 percent of those are now filed electronically. In a roundabout way, that’s helped cut down on the number of audits the IRS can conduct.

You may be surprised to know that numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau show Minnesota has the sixth-highest taxes in the country. But Wisconsin is just ahead of us as the fifth-highest taxed state in the nation.

Minnesota tax officials are scrambling to put in place new tax cuts passed by the legislature just six days ago. In a rare move, they’re asking taxpayers who might qualify for tax cuts to wait until April 3 to file. The department needs until then to program the tax cuts into its computers and instruction forms.

Need that new Justin Bieber ringtone? Come July 1 buying it will carry a Minnesota sales tax. Hiring a repairman for the office photocopier? That labor will be taxed. Catching a pay-per-view movie on satellite television? There’s a tax on that, too.

Minnesota took in about $25 million more in tax revenue in May than was initially expected, as revenue collections for the year continue to perform above projections. The Department of Minnesota Management and Budget says Monday that general fund revenues of $1.4 billion in May were 1.9 percent above the agency’s February forecast. In the year to date, the state has collected $324 million more than predicted in that forecast.

The owner of Dahl Trucking in Elmore, Minn., was indicted Tuesday in federal court for avoiding payment of taxes on the wages of his employees from 2007 to 2010. Marlin Dahl was specifically charged with 13 counts of failure to collect and pay Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) taxes.

In early February, a development agency in Gov. Mark Dayton’s administration made a deal with a giant pharmaceutical company: The state would explore grants and tax breaks that could yield almost 200 high-wage jobs all while keeping Baxter Healthcare Group’s name out of the public conversation.

Following a hush-hush courtship, top Minnesota lawmakers acknowledged Tuesday that they are compiling a multi-million dollar package of public subsidies and tax breaks to encourage an Illinois-based pharmaceutical firm to add 200 high-paying jobs and undertake a substantial construction project in their state.

The IRS expects that 75 percent of all 2012 returns will be entitled to a refund, so if you haven’t started preparing your taxes yet, do it: There’s no reason to wait for April 15 to roll around to get that money back from Uncle Sam.